December 2011
32 posts
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Melancholy and the Infinite Stratos →
Review I wrote over at Japanator, check it out!
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Impressed!! Mawaru Penguindrum 24 FINAL
Let’s Share the Fruit of Fate.
In the year or so I’ve been attempting to write about anime, I don’t think anything has prepared me to write about the Penguindrum finale. Filled with conceptual imagery and surprisingly huge amounts of raw emotion, I feel like I’m dealing with art on a higher level than I’ve ever attempted to tackle in words. It’s true...
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Impressed!! Boku wa Tomodachi Sukunai 12 FINAL
Oh so THAT’S why I love Yozora.
I had my expectations set pretty low for the BokuTomo finale and well… it could have been worse. Actually there was quite a bit to like, but the predictable final moments leave us hoping for another season at best or completely frustrated by the story’s lack of progress at worst.
Let’s start with the good stuff: I’ve made no secret...
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Impressed!! Guilty Crown 11
Sorry Guilty Crown, it’s not you, it’s me. You’ve managed to stay modestly entertaining and even had the good sense to kill off Dan Eagleman. But I’ve got a lot of other things going on in my life now and it’s going to take more than that for me to keep writing about you every week. You’re beautiful and talented, I’m sure there is someone out...
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Winter 2012 Anime Rapid-Fire Preview
2011 is going to be a really tough year to follow as far as anime goes, and after three solid seasons it looks like it will be a slow Winter. Not a whole lot catching my attention going into January but here are a few things I’ll be checking out:
Nisemonogatari
Being the sequel to Bakemonogatari, it’s the series to watch this season by default. While I’m not totally sold on...
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Impressed!! Mawaru Penguindrum 23
The New Breed of Sibling Rivalry.
With Penguindrum unraveling all kinds of mysteries and speeding towards the conclusion, I don’t have too much to say about this episode other than 1. the opening scene with Sanetoshi and Momoka was a great reveal and 2. go watch it! I will mention I went back and watched the first two episodes to get a little perspective on how far we’ve come...
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Impressed!! Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai 11
Fun Fact: I love girls with short haircuts.
BokuTomo tackles the mandatory Festival episode this week, making things as awkward as only the Neighbor’s club can while providing enough drama to carry us into the finale.
OK, let’s just cut to the Big Reveal: at first I thought it was a little anti-climactic to just tack it on at the end of the episode. But the more I think about it...
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Impressed!! Guilty Crown 10
When in doubt, bring on the Apocalypse.
I was convinced this was going to be the episode I dropped Guilty Crown. As Shu was moping through his best (worst?) Shinji Ikari impersonation and I was shouting all kinds of verbal abuse at my TV, I was pretty much at my limit. Then they kind of brought on the end of the world… well at least the end of Japan anyway. OK FINE, I’LL KEEP...
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Impressed!! Mawaru Penguindrum 22
Fate, it’s your move.
This week’s Penguindrum continues the sprint to the finish line, putting the final pieces of Kanba’s plan into place and leaving several of our “heroes” lives hanging in the balance. Time is officially up, setting us up for one last showdown with Fate.
I told myself I’d lay off the speculation, but here’s some questions going...
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ACAA 2011: Puella Magi Madoka Magica
1. Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Madoka Magica gave anime fans quite a jolt when it aired early this year, taking one of the most moe of sub-genres (magical girls) and somehow warping it into a dark, Faustian thriller. That contrast makes for an interesting idea, but perhaps the best part of Madoka is taking that high concept and actually backing it up. There might be some details you could pick...
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Impressed!! Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai 10
Well at least no one will have sunburn.
Wow. BokuTomo cranks the Fan Service meter to 11 this week, finally getting the swimsuit thing out of their system and throwing out all sorts of implied fetish fuel. I know the show isn’t exactly known for keepin’ it classy, but I was kind of hoping to escape without any blu-ray selling beam-of-light-censoring.
While the service was a lot...
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ACAA 2011: Mawaru Penguindrum
2. Mawaru Penguindrum
Don’t let the pretty colors, cute penguins, and FABULOUS transformations fool you. Penguindrum is an intense modern fairy tale, constantly shifting the storytelling from past to present, reality to fantasy. The vague clues and symbolism make the plot almost impenetrable through the first two-thirds of the series, but you never truly feel lost. The flawed but...
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Impressed!! Guilty Crown 9
The Pruning Shears of Despair.
Oh right, there’s some kind of virus and people dying and stuff, THAT’S what this show is about! Glib remarks (and Hare’s cringe-inducing cliché antics) aside, this week’s Guilty Crown was actually pretty good. You would think sending Gai away and having Shu in the driver seat would be a bad idea, but somehow it worked out to deliver the...
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ACAA 2011: Nichijou
3. Nichijou
Opinions have been mixed about Nichijou but I absolutely loved it. The show’s odd sense of humor may not be for everyone, but the execution is flawless. The art style, animation, music, writing… it accomplishes everything the creators set out to do perfectly. That includes more than just being funny. A truly heartfelt message about appreciating life’s...
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ACAA 2011: Steins;Gate
4. Steins;Gate
I am very sick of time travel stories, so when I started watching Steins;Gate it already had an uphill climb. Fortunately the series manages to keep the sci-fi elements fresh enough while putting the real emphasis on the human element of the story. I quickly found myself rooting for it’s cast of lovable losers, particularly their over-the-top charismatic leader and series...
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ACAA 2011: Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Bokutachi...
5. Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai
AnoHana flirts with masterpiece status. It’s a Death of Innocence story told with tragedy, angst and even obsession, but somehow it still manages to stay positive. The drama is a little hit and miss; some aspects develop naturally and are downright heartbreaking (Naruko!!!) while others feel a little manufactured. The ending in...
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ACAA 2011: Bunny Drop
6. Bunny Drop
Sometimes real life produces the most compelling stories and while the circumstances that set up the premise of Bunny Drop are far from ordinary, they’re certainly not impossible. That sense of reality adds some weight to an otherwise light-hearted slice of life series. There are no super powers, no time traveling, no pool episodes; just a single man trying to raise a...
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ACAA 2011: Fate/Zero
7. Fate/Zero
Fate/Zero would probably have a shot at being higher on the list if we didn’t have an entire half of the series to go. Even judging by what we’ve seen so far though, it’s been quite a ride. The dark setting and adult characters stand out in the sea of colorful high school shows we’ve grown accustomed to, and the animation by studio-on-the-rise Ufotable is...
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Impressed!! Mawaru Penguindrum 21
Boys, come back to me.
I’ve loved pretty much all of Penguindrum but the last few episodes have been fantastic. It’s like we’re brushing aside the curtain of surreal imagery and symbolism and seeing the dirty, gritty reality that’s been churning behind the scenes. There’s definitely still weird stuff going on, but our perception of the Takakura’s seemingly...
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Impressed!! Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai 9
UNIVERSE!! Redux
BokuTomo just won’t let this swimming thing die, so this week gets us all set up for an overnight trip to the beach. Naturally this leads to the Hasegawa siblings spending the night at Sena’s house and Kodaka sleeping with Sena’s peculiar father named “Pegasus”… uh wait, what? I guess we needed a little dash of weirdness to break up the...
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ACAA 2011: Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai
8. Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai
Haganai is an easy show to write off as another brain-cell-destroying ecchi comedy but it doesn’t take long to see there’s something different about it. The show builds an outline of a harem comedy only to kick it in the teeth and laugh at it while it’s on the ground. Comparisons to the otaku-themed Oreimo seem fair, but Haganai definitely...
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Impressed!! Guilty Crown 8
So I guess this was the beach episode?
Guilty Crown continues down their checklist of anime clichés as we take a trip to the beach for some kind of mission or something… I don’t even know what’s going on at this point. I’ll admit Hare was pretty cute and I do appreciate that everyone seems to be a little more forward about their romantic interests than usual, but not...
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ACAA 2011: The World God Only Knows II
9. The World God Only Knows II
Another continuation of a show I loved, Keima and Elsie pick up right where they left off on their mission to collect loose souls. The new batch of girls prove to be more complex to define and seeing Keima actually make some progress as a character, however slight, is worth the price of admission. It’s hard to get too emotionally invested in TWGOK since...
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ACAA 2011: Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu Ni
10. Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu Ni
The follow up to one of my favorite anime comedies, Baka Test Ni delivers more of everything there was to love in the first season. The fast paced comedy, crazy summon battle system, and incredibly flashy art style are all exactly as we left them… maybe a little too exact, as some of the jokes start to outlive their welcome and the Akihisa/Minami/Himeji...
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ACAA 2011: Hanasaku Iroha
11. Hanasaku Iroha
I feel like HanaIro should be higher up on this list. The production values are off the charts, to the point where I’d have no issue calling it the best looking show of the year. The country onsen setting and the three generations of women at the center of the story offer so much promise, particularly in the very strong first two episodes and the final story arc. But...
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ACAA 2011: Persona 4 The Animation
12. Persona 4 The Animation
I’m not sure how much I’d like P4A if I hadn’t played the game, but so far I’m enjoying the anime and all its glorious fan service. They’ve been keeping the adaptation very close to the source material, right down to the music and even some of the menus. I can’t even describe how much I geeked out the first time the riff for...
